Online Customer Service Mistakes Your Company Needs To Avoid

You know the internet? That vast location where everybody on Earth seems to gather to share ideas and complaints. There was a time when the web would have been scoffed at as a real place to be concerned about customer service, but that has changed drastically in the past fifteen years. Customers on the internet have a major impact on how modern companies do business and on their success. Not only are people moving more towards purchasing products and services strictly online as opposed to brick-and-mortar stores, they also have the means to provide their feedback about your company to anyone and everyone. This means that if enough people complain about your company online, the more likely it will be to spread in a modern update of “word of mouth” and have negative impacts on your brand. If you want to keep your customers happy and earn their loyalty, you need to ensure your online customer service is just as good as your traditional in-person and call center customer service. In her recent article, Karen Repoli provides the following list of the top 10 online customer service mistakes that your company needs to avoid to provide a positive online customer experience and business reputation management:

1) Making customers wait a long time before they get a response from your company is an easy way to get on their nerves. Repoli recommends utilizing automation to acknowledge the support ticket and give an estimated response time.

2) As with traditional stores, it can be a major mistake for companies to not have written policies and procedures to help properly set customer expectations. Some things you need to have addressed in writing is how your company handles complaints, returns, refunds, and expectations for your customers. These written procedures and policies can be located on your website in places like FAQ pages and in office locations as well.

3) If the customer has a complaint about something that is directly the fault of your company, you’d be foolish not to apologize. Owning up to your mistakes is necessary before solving the problem itself, and it lets them know you care about their frustration. However, Repoli also points out that companies shouldn’t take this to the point where they’re accept blame when the problem isn’t the fault of the company.

4) Anyone who has worked in customer service knows that interactions can get heated, as customers are often venting in addition to requesting a solution. The mistake occurs when you take the customer’s complaint personally. For company owner’s, Repoli recommends hiring customer service agents to remove themselves from complaints if you can’t avoid taking them personally. If you already have customer service agents, always let them know you have their back. Employees can have very rough customer interactions, but it can help them greatly if they know their managers are on their side.

5) Don’t feed the trolls. If you haven’t heard that phrase before, it basically means don’t take the bait if there’s a person who’s saying absurd things about your company just because they want to cause drama. Getting into public arguments with people only trying to spam your social media pages will most likely only make your company look bad if it gets out of hand. You know the difference between legitimate complaints and people just trying to make a scene, so Repoli recommends just deleting spam comments.

You can read about the remaining five online customer service mistakes in more detail in the original article. They are:

6) Ignoring Negative Customer Feedback

7) Disregarding Customer Service Preferences

8) Only Considering Immediate Needs

9) Avoiding Personalization

10) Not Saying Thank You

This blog post is based on an article from HIT Virtual Assistants. To read the original article, please click the link below:

10 Online Customer Service Mistakes – Karen Repoli